Dying Just To Feel You
by mexicantt
Summary: "You will believe in me, and I can never be ignored."
1. One

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter or anything thus affiliated and am making no money from this work.

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><p>It all started on that bloody trip during what should have rightfully been Hermione's final year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She blames being tired (and wholly unprepared for the task left for them by Dumbledore) for the fact that they wore that damned locket every day instead of shoving the damned thing into her bottomless bag. And, of course, it was nearly all the locket's fault. Poor Harry was tortured while wearing the locket with something Hermione never learned of, considering he was raised without the ability to lean on other human beings and share his burdens. Ron became even more of a giant ass than he had previously been and a whiny brat in addition. Hermione was left to battle her own demons. And in all honesty, she never would have guessed that her demons would have taken the shape of a pale blond with a pointy face that she had last seen rushing by her through the chaos that was the battle between school children and Death Eaters at the end of her sixth year.<p>

Without fail, Draco Malfoy was the vision used to torture Hermione during her time with a pocket-sized Riddle hanging around her neck.

After Ron returned and destroyed the locket, things got a little bit better for Hermione. Her head was no longer overrun with images of the Slytherin who introduced her to the idea of blood prejudice. No, now that only happened when she slept, where she often found herself dominating Draco in every way she could have ever imagined – and some she couldn't. Some nights it was sexual, and other nights she just spent her dream time convincing him that the two of them together were meant to be. Every morning, she woke up from one of these dreams, and she tried to forget them. They scared her because she couldn't stop them. They scared her because she was starting to believe that they really were meant to be together.

Then they got snatched.

She saw Draco face-to-face for the first time in almost a year. She couldn't look at him, but she could feel his eyes on her until he was asked to confirm her identity. Then, her eyes were drawn to him as he turned away and walked to the fireplace, and she wondered why he didn't just tell them they were right. Why hadn't he rejoiced in making the Mudblood finally get her due? Her questions quickly left her mind, however, as Bellatrix Lestrange decided Hermione was the most expendable of the trio. That was when the torture started and she was unable to concentrate on anything, unable to be certain if Draco had remained in the room the entire time she was under the assault of both wand and knife.

The next time she saw him was at the battle itself, when they were in the Room of Requirement and he told his friend not to hurt her and they saved his life. Then, it was all over; she saw him, huddled with his mother and father, too tired and weary to care about their dignity or appearances. All they seemed to be able to focus on was the comfort it brought to hold their arms about each other and to know they were one of the few families to escape the war relatively unscathed. Hermione thought it was the best she had ever seen any of the Malfoys look in all her years of knowing them.

And through all of this, her dreams never let up, only growing in intensity. The kiss she shared with Ron during the battle was revolting, as his tongue felt like a wet noodle slipping around inside her mouth and left her nearly cringing in disgust. Ron was incapable of making Hermione feel even something close to how her dream Draco was able to make her feel. Summer passed, and Harry and Ron could not reconcile themselves with going back to something so mundane as school after their ordeal and adventures, forcing Hermione to return to finish her education by herself.

"Draco, darling, won't you please come to speak with your father and me in the drawing room? We are waiting and I expect you here in no more than five minutes."

Sighing, Draco Malfoy hauled himself from his bed upon hearing his mother's voice, carried to him through the house via a spell his clever mother had modified when he had been but a small child. Malfoy Manor was a large home, and there were seemingly limitless places for a young child just learning his way around to get lost. Answering the summons, Draco walked at a brisk pace down the hall until he reached the central staircase, taking it down to the ground level of his home. He shuddered as he crossed the threshold to the drawing room, echoes of Granger's screams ringing in his head, causing him to grimace before he could school his expression to one of passivity.

"…me, Draco?"

"Hm? My apologies, Mother, my mind got away from me for a moment. Would you be so kind as to repeat yourself?"

As Draco looked around the room, he saw his father standing by the fireplace much as he had that day just a short number of months ago when the so-called "Golden Trio" had been dragged into his home by a werewolf. Quickly looking away, Draco's eyes landed on the rug on the floor and were drawn to the dark brown spot where Hermione Granger's blood had been spilt. As much as his family would have liked to rid themselves of some of the reminders which showed how the Dark Lord had bastardized the Malfoy ancestral home, the Ministry of Magic had forbidden them from changing even a single stone on the property. They were indefinitely under house arrest and forced to live even longer with the fruits borne of their labor under the Dark Lord. Draco avoided coming into this room because of that dark spot on what was once his mother's favorite rug, taken with her from her own childhood home to make the manor feel more like her own. The mere sight of the dried blood never failed to make his pulse race and his cheeks flush; it made him feel faint.

He forced his eyes away once more and focused on his mother, who was sitting on a settee near the fireplace, her ankles neatly crossed and legs to the side, hands folded primly in her lap. Narcissa Black Malfoy was always one to maintain her poise and composure, and Draco had always found her to be a rock upon which he could stand. Giving her his complete attention, Draco sat across from the settee on a matching chaise.

"Draco, your father and I have been speaking and we want you to consider going to Hogwarts to finish your final year of schooling."

At this statement, Draco arched a brow.

"Oh, Mother? And how exactly will I be expected to do so? As you know, I am under the same house arrest that you and Father are currently restricted by. Am I to do my work by owl post, perhaps?"

"Enough, Draco." Lucius Malfoy finally turned around to face his son. "Your mother has been trying to find a way to allow you to be out of the Manor walls for the last three months. She has endeavored to make you as free as you can be until the Ministry sets a date for our trials. She has even gone so far as to contact Potter for help –"

Here Draco noticed that the man he called father grew suddenly silent, darting his eyes to Narcissa and at her almost imperceptible nod, he sighed deeply. Lucius then drew a breath and continued.

"Son, _I_ spoke to Potter over the Floo on your behalf. He was willing to speak to the interim Minister for Magic about being lenient with you. He has managed to convince the man that allowing you to complete your schooling would do more to make you of value to the wizarding world than it would to keep you locked down at home. We think this would be best for you, Draco. You do not deserve to share my fate, whatever it may be, and if you are not here with me when my sentence is passed, I hope that your own will be lighter."

Draco had nothing to say to this. He could see the logic in it. Frankly, he was rather stunned to know that his father would have actually spoken to _Harry Potter_ to make this happen. He nodded curtly in acquiescence and left the room, thinking that perhaps what people were referring to as the Second War had finally managed to change his father for the better.

There was a flash of blond hair to her left. Now, it wasn't out of the norm to see blond hair in Diagon Alley. But this flash of blond was very distinctive. She had seen that head of hair in her dreams more times than she could recollect. There was no doubt in her mind it belonged to Draco Malfoy.

Breaking away from the crowd, Hermione followed it down a small alley off of the main road, but as she followed its twists and turns, she was met with a dead end and no Draco. Shaking her head, Hermione sighed quietly under her breath; this was not the first time she had seen the young man who haunted her dreams and many of her waking moments. Yet, he had always remained elusive. Hermione thought she must be slowly going mad. She could hear him, sometimes, when shopping at the local market. She swore she heard his sneering tone once on the tube, but it was so absurd a notion that he should be there that she didn't bother to check for him.

Just three more days. Three more days until she would be on her way back to Hogwarts, and Harry had let slip to her that Malfoy would be joining her on the train. Whether she was losing touch with reality or not, she was certain it would stop once she saw him there every day. She was hoping.

Hogwarts had only been in session for a fortnight, but Draco felt more unease than he had expected. He had noticed some bizarre behavior in Hermione Granger and was certain that the war had left her more damaged than anyone suspected. As he passed her in the halls, he could sometimes hear her muttering to herself about someone not really having been speaking to her, and that she couldn't possibly be seeing two of the same man in the same room at the same time. He could have sworn that he heard her mention his own name more than once in these ramblings and he was most definitely aware of her eyes tracking him in the hallways and classrooms. In fact, if her eyes weren't on him or his work, they would often be trained on an area that was, to Draco's eye, completely devoid of life. It was disconcerting, but Draco was determined to simply focus on his studies and keep to himself and out of trouble. He had been given a great opportunity, even if it did come through the grace of a boy he had held a grudge toward for more than six years, and he was loathe to waste it.

While it was technically her eighth year at Hogwarts, she was treated as a seventh-year student. Due to the lack of competent teachers in core subjects the previous year as well as how many students had to essentially drop out as the year progressed, the Hogwarts staff and governors decided that the previous year would need to be repeated. The first years were a rather large group, which was nice to see after the smaller class sizes the year before. It had the added bonus of making Hermione not feel like such a stranger to the place that had become more of a home to her than the building she grew up in with her parents.

Of course, as much as it did help in making her feel like she belonged at Hogwarts still, a large part of her felt _wrong_ being there. Being at Hogwarts without her boys was disorienting. No matter how amicable her relationships might have been with Ginny and Neville and Luna and others she had fought with in the D.A. and throughout the war, it just wasn't the same.

They were nearly two months into the new school year, and Hermione was losing her mind. She could hear Draco's voice speaking to her, sometimes joined by the smooth Tom Riddle that had first taunted her when she wore Slytherin's locket. Some days, she saw Draco walking toward her, hands tied intricately behind his back with smooth rope and his blond head down in submission, while he was sitting on the opposite side of the classroom.  
>Rationally, she knew that one of them was just her imagination, but as time passed, she became less and less sure which one was real and which one was false. Yet when she could bother to be honest with herself, being "rational" held less appeal than it once did.<p>

Hermione was on her way to the library. She was well aware that she was fulfilling the cliché image people had of her by doing so, but she knew that _he_ would be there. Her obsession – she knew that how often she thought of him was beyond a normal "crush" – with Draco Malfoy grew stronger every day. Her eyes followed him from the moment he entered a room and remained trained there until he left.

She knew his schedule by heart, helped along by the fact that she shared every N.E.W.T. class she was taking with him. At their levels, class sizes tended to be too small to separate the houses, and everyone was always lumped into one room. Other factors in their smaller class sizes were the deaths of their peers and the absence of those who decided not to come back, but Hermione did not think about those things very often. Instead, she turned her thoughts to the blond pureblood that had invaded her life roughly one year ago.

Yet again, Draco found himself pondering over the dilemma that was Hermione Granger. He knew that she was constantly watching him, of course. It was quite hard for anybody to miss, really. But what with his being on the losing side of the war versus her being on the winning side, in addition to being best friend to Harry Potter_, Savior of the Wizarding World_, most people seemed to think she was scrutinizing him to make sure that he stayed in line. Draco knew better, though. It was her eyes. The few times he had gathered enough temerity to meet his gray to her brown, he could see the heat in them. And that scared him. _She_ scared him – the heat he saw wasn't normal. There was something more behind it. It was in the way she looked at him, he supposed. It was unlike the warden of a prison or a sitter watching a child for misdeeds. No, Granger studied him – hunted him like a predator slowly stalking prey. Her eyes followed him everywhere.

Thanks to the Marauders map she had swiped from Harry's things, Hermione knew where he was at all times and she had sufficiently lost herself in him to utilize this to her advantage without qualm. Finally having made it to her destination, she quietly walked in and slipped behind the dusty bookshelves, moving around through the tall stacks with all the lazy grace of the cat her house was known for. She could see him through the gaps in the shelves, sitting by himself at a table surrounded by his bag and books and parchment. Settling on a table behind him and to his left, Hermione slowly walked to the empty space and set her things down, preparing herself for hours of "study".

She was here again. He could _feel_ her. He could always feel her, nearly every moment of every day once he left the safety of his dormitory in the dungeons until he retreated back there at night to sleep. This had been going on since they arrived at King's Cross station, Granger not having waited until they had arrived at Hogwarts or even boarded the train to begin watching him. At first, he didn't think anything of it, but after the first few weeks her staring had become too intense to brush off. It had gotten to the point where any time he couldn't feel her eyes on him, he began to feel incomplete and wrong.

Draco still could not understand why she was watching him. That wasn't quite true as he knew perfectly well that she wanted him, and badly at that, but he could not seem to reconcile that with what he thought he'd known to be true about the girl who had always managed to beat him in academics. Having grown up to despise Hermione Granger and people like her, he had never managed to view her in a sexual manner while they attended school together. He had seen her with Krum the night of the Yule Ball in their fourth year, and until he had learned her identity, he thought her stunning. However, when the connection between the pretty girl and the Mudblood became clear in his mind, it was as though he forgot his initial impression. He could only think of her as unworthy, as an imposter in this world that was rightfully his and not hers.

The first time he really thought of her as a real woman, which she now clearly was to his eyes, had been as she writhed on his drawing room floor, his aunt screaming her madness to all present while she interrogated Granger until she lost consciousness. In spite of the circumstances, he had found himself noticing her straining breasts as her back arched off of the floor in pain. He had disgusted himself as he noticed her hips, her small waist and lean legs that he imagined had been fuller before the trio had essentially disappeared the previous fall.

Now, with the heavy weight of her stare following him around, he became very aware that Granger was indeed a woman. When she passed him in the halls, her hips would sway enticingly. When she saw him across the Great Hall every morning, noon, and night, he swore she was trying to drive him mad with the way she licked her spoon clean throughout her meal. And when she cornered him in the library, as she had tonight, it was inevitable that she would approach him once they were alone. Each and every time, without fail, she would whisper dirty things to him. Her lips and tongue would caress words like _cock_, _pussy_, and – his favorite word from her mouth – a sultry _fuck_ with a strong "k" enunciated at the end. She would call him a bad boy for teasing her so, for being bound so beautifully in places that she was unable to fully appreciate him. There were times where she would quietly scold him for talking to her out of turn and for "making Mistress unhappy", amongst other things. Most of the time he had absolutely no idea what she was on about as he couldn't even remember the last time he had spoken to her, let alone touched her the way she claimed he did. Mainly he chalked it up to Granger sharing her dirty fantasies with him.

It made him hard, but he never let on. He would simply sit still as a statue, pretending he had been hit with _Pertificus Totalus_, until she moved on. Tonight, however…felt different. Draco could not yet tell whether "different" would be good or bad.

Hermione knew she needed to do something drastic soon. She wasn't sure how much longer she could wait for Draco to make up his mind. He was constantly wavering with her, teasing her by coming to her and gifting her with his perfect submission for a few days and then going back to not talking to her anymore. Her libido and her heart couldn't take it anymore. As soon as she thought he was sincere in his request to call her "Mistress", he would change his mind and acted as though they hadn't spoken to one another all year. She had told him so many times that she would wait for him, make room for him in her life, and yet he remained so unresponsive. Even her whispers into his ear in the library failed to arouse more than just a physical reaction in him, and she needed more than just his body. She needed his heart and mind and soul to be hers, the way she had told him hers are his.

The library was clearing out, with only herself, Draco, Madam Pince, and two Ravenclaw fifth years remaining. After another half hour of working on an essay that meant very little to the person that Hermione now was, the younger students left and Madam Pince began her nightly stalk through the stacks to be sure that none of her beloved tomes were left out of place. Draco was packing his things away, so Hermione nonchalantly did the same. When he was finished, she decided to give him a sporting five-minute head start. It was a large school, after all, and with the map in her possession, it wasn't likely that Draco could find anywhere to go that she could not follow.

Just as she had suspected, Hermione found Draco well before he had even made it down to the Great Hall. She utilized a shortcut behind a rather ridiculous tapestry of goblins, happily handing over sacks of gold to wizards, and managed to ambush the Slytherin completely as he passed her by.

Something was most definitely off. Granger hadn't left before him in the library, which meant she hadn't spoken her lascivious words into his ear before sauntering up to her tower bedroom. In fact, he couldn't even feel her following him, and it was making him anxious. Just as he was contemplating actually going back to see whether or not something prevented their nightly ritual, he was silently petrified and immediately began floating toward the wall. Draco was certain that he was about to be in some serious pain when he slid through what was apparently the illusion of a painting. He came to a stop against the wall of the hidden space and saw her standing there, idly fingering her wand at her side as a smile slowly stretched up one side of her mouth.

"Hello there, Pet."

He was silent.

Of course, this was likely because the modified _Petrificus Totalus_ she had used on him rendered him unable to speak, but she imagined he would have been rendered speechless either way. She shoved off of the wall she had been leaning against, taking her time to walk to him.

"Oh, my Pet. I'm growing tired of our games. Have I really not made myself clear to you yet? We are _meant_ to be together. After all you've shared with me, after our tears, after I split us both open so that we could both see that we are no different from one another, you continue to leave me. Why must you continue to torture us both so?"

Here, Hermione stopped directly in front of him, not touching him without his permission – oh no – she would make him beg before she touched him again. He owed her that much. But she was close enough to feel his heat, to feel the warmth coming from the body of the man who had always been so cold to her.

"Draco, you _will_ believe in me." His eyes were staring at her, wide and fearful. She breathed her next word to him. "_Legilimens_..."

Suddenly, he was inundated with images. She called to the forefront of his mind the way he could not help his body reacting to the sight of her breasts thrusting into the air with every bout of the Cruciatus Curse. She brought the dismay he was beginning to feel when he realized she was not following him out of the library. He recalled the unease he felt when her eyes latched onto him at the train station on the first of September. Flashes of her dirty words were spoken into his ear once more, and he felt the swelling on his erection dozens of times in the space of a few seconds. His body was reacting, he knew it was, and he was utterly powerless to stop it.

Then, new memories were being forced into his head.

He could see them in his mind's eye on the eve of the Welcoming Feast, Hermione speaking quietly to him in a dark corridor leading to some unused classrooms. He saw them dancing around each other, and saw himself returning her intense stares as the days flew past. Finally, he saw himself in a room he didn't recognize, nude and strapped down to a bed with shackles that reminded him of the ones Argus Filch kept to keep students wary. He was begging Granger to please touch him, to lick, suck, kiss, fuck – anything she could provide so that he could come. She was hovering over him just out of reach, no matter how much he pulled on the chains. Then she called him a "good pet" and stroked him until he came all over himself and her hand, her lilting praise in the background of the most intense high he had ever felt. When she ran a suede flogger over his backside in another memory, he swore he could feel the cool leather slipping against his skin while her other hand reached around to stroke him until he was begging for the release that she did not give.

Draco wanted to shake her out of his head. He knew those memories were false, that these things had never happened, but she was making it seem so convincing. It was a full sensory experience. Slowly, he felt her remove her presence from his mind and met her dark gaze. The last thing he heard her say was a softly uttered "_Confundo_" – then his world went fuzzy.

Today was the day. Hermione was up with the dawn, having prepared everything for this day and being too excited to waste a moment of it on sleep. Her friends were under the impression that Hermione was spending the Christmas hols by herself, searching through Australia for her parents. She had long since found them, happy and with twins on the way in the summer, but kept those details to herself. They were a new family now, and she…well, she would have Draco. She was enamored of him, and soon he would feel the same. She would make certain of it.

For the last month and a half, Hermione had cornered Draco at least once a week and delved into his mind, sharing the visions and dreams that Tom Riddle's Horcrux locket had both inserted and inspired in her consciousness the year before. Each time, she would use the Confundus spell to confuse Draco, much the way Harry said Snape had done to Mundungus in the memories he viewed last May. Hermione was aware that it was wrong of her to abuse her submissive's trust by delving into his mind and sharing memories of the two of them from her own point of view, but she could not stop herself. She was leaving these impressions in his mind, causing him to dream at night much the way she had for the last year. And he was succumbing to them, she could tell. When she spoke into his ear now, he leaned ever-so-slightly toward her instead of holding every bit of himself rigid. His eyes were on her nearly as much as hers had been on him, but she was allowing him the time to look at her the way she had been given the time to study him the last several months. She knew that the time was right, that he was finally ready to admit to his own feelings for her.

While the rest of the student body made their way to the thestral-drawn carriages in front of the school that would take them to Hogsmeade and the Hogwarts Express, Hermione was lingering in the shadows of the entrance hall. When she spotted the white-blond head that filled her every fantasy, she spoke out.

"Draco?"

The hand on his arm held him firmly in place despite his obvious reluctance to allow it to keep him there.

"Draco, I'm worried about you. I've seen this growing obsession with Granger and I don't think any good can come of it."

Pansy Parkinson was one of Draco's oldest friends, and when it came to her concern for his well-being, she had always been frighteningly accurate. But Draco was sincerely wishing she would just shut up already.

"Look, Pans, I don't know how many times I have to tell you. There is nothing to worry about. I'm a big boy, and I can handle myself. You know that Granger is too much of a do-gooder to ever really bring me harm. It isn't who she is."

Pansy sighed and looked away from him.

"I know, Draco. But please be careful around her. She has been interested in you all year, and I don't want to see you get hurt. The war changed everyone, and we can't know for sure that she is still the same person she was back before it started."

Draco knew Pansy was still speaking, but he had heard _her_ speak his name, and his head snapped up to search for her. Finding her lurking in the darkness behind the open double doors of the entrance hall, he decided it was time to move Pansy along and go to Hermione. He had waited long enough.

"I'll be careful," Draco interrupted. "You had best hurry before all of the carriages leave without you. Many are already gone and I know you don't want to make the walk to Hogsmeade on your own. I'm still not allowed to leave the castle boundaries unaccompanied and won't be able to go with you. Go on. I'll see you after the break."

With one last sigh and a peck to his cheek, Pansy ordered her trunk ahead of her and made her way to one of the last open carriages, disappearing with the other stragglers to the train station. Once she was out of sight, he turned his attention back to Hermione, but she was no longer there. His eyes swept around the room and landed on the bushy hair making its way up the staircase. He pursued.

How _dare_ he allow Parkinson to put her lips on him? Hermione was fuming, and her plans for the day began to change immediately. She made sure he was looking for her before she turned to the staircase and began flying up the steps. He was following her, his steps echoing loudly in the nearly empty building as he raced after her. The head start she had was sufficient, and she led him neatly to the Room of Requirement, where she promptly slipped inside after a quick pace across from the tutu-wearing trolls, leaving him to lunge to catch the handle before it closed completely. And when it did, they were in darkness.

"Pet, you've been a very naughty boy."

Hermione's voice rang out clearly in the room, causing shivers to run down his back and his cock to start to swell. He had dreamed of a Granger like this, speaking to him as though he were an errant puppy about to be scolded. He found himself hoping there would be punishment involved at the same time that he was wondered what was wrong with him. He had never had these proclivities before, never wanted to be dominated by a woman. And he knew this for a fact, because he had no issues with being adventurous in bed and had tried it twice before, having found it to be quite distasteful. However, when he thought of Hermione Granger being the one to hold him down, to discipline him, he became rock hard and was inundated with sights and sounds and smells of what it would be like. He had woken up from enough dreams with her topping him in the last month to know that he would be amenable to whatever she asked of him here today.

Draco was torn between wanting to answer her and the feeling that he really should just stay silent and wait for her to continue, to show her that he could be good. In his dreams, he was always rewarded so very well when he was good.

Hermione smiled to herself in the darkness, please by Draco's silence. She knew he was in here, she could hear him breathing, and it was gratifying to know that their little meetings seemed to be paying off already for her. She had asked the room for a few playthings when she called it into existence. While part of her knew she really should go easy on him, that cow Parkinson putting her lips on _Hermione's_ Draco had been too much to bear, and she was intent on punishing him for having allowed it to happen. With an unspoken request to the room, the wall sconces slowly came to life, illuminating the rich brown rug under their feet and the St Andrews Cross that was on the opposite side of the room from the door. Oh, yes, she would be playing with him tonight.

"Do you remember what that is over there, Pet?" she asked in an overly-honeyed voice while pointing to the large metal "X". Draco merely gulped and shook his head, his breaths becoming slightly shallower and faster. "That," she continued, "is where you will be for the next few hours. I want to see you strip, Pet."

He hesitated.

"Do it. _Now_."

He had to swallow down his excitement as he hurriedly reached up to take off his sweater and tie, toeing off his shoes and socks at the same time. Then, his hands went to his buttons, first undoing the ones on his shirt and following quickly down to his slacks. He shrugged the shirt off and onto the floor then promptly pulled both his pants and trousers down his legs, stepping out of them as soon as he was able. In his haste, he nearly lost his balance, but managed to hold it.

"Now, I want you to walk over there, Pet, and place your hands on the top two bars, facing the cross."

Doing as he was told, Draco rested his forearms against the metal and gasped as they suddenly encased his wrists in cuffs that were seamlessly attached to the cross.

"Good, Pet, very good. Now I want you to spread those legs until they are lined up with the rest of the cross. Yes, that's it. Let the cuffs hold you in place while I get a good look at you."

He was exquisite, just as he always was. Perhaps a bit too thin, still, but then again, she had no room to talk on that matter as the same was still true for her own figure. She hadn't yet been able to get a good look at his cock to see if he was responding properly, but she knew she would have plenty of time for that later. For now, her gaze was focused on his backside, her thoughts on which tool she would use in his punishment.

"Pet, do you know why I must punish you today?" At her words, Draco simply shook his head, still seemingly unwilling to break his silence. She was pleased at this. Her Pet seemed to remember her instruction even though more than a month had passed since they had last had time for a scene. "I'm sure you know. You know that you're mine, Pet. No one else is allowed to touch you. But today you allowed it to happen. Today you allowed someone to put her lips on your perfect skin, to place her scent onto your body by touching you and holding you.

"You know this is unacceptable and that it cannot go undisciplined." Hermione removed her shoes, bare toes slipping into the carpet and wriggling around for a few seconds before she made her way over to her wayward toy. She stopped at the table that appeared next to him and contemplated the floggers there. Tonight was a night for punishment, so she would start slowly. She picked up the white doe skin flogger, its 42 tails swinging gently as she lifted it into the air. This would make for a fine start.

Draco could hear some movement behind him, but he was unable to locate the source. Truth be told, he was frightened. He didn't know what to expect from Granger, not really. He knew what he dreamed about, and he knew what he was hoping for, but she had sounded quite genuinely mad and distraught at the thought of Pansy having touched him.

When her hand made contact with his bottom, he jumped a little and realized just how restricted his movements would be while he was on the cross. Her hand smoothed around the skin and he bit back a moan. Her hand landed again, this time in a different spot. Again and again and again, her hand rose and fell and his backside began to feel warm. Then he felt something foreign. Whatever it was, Hermione was slowly dragging it up his spine and then down again.

"This is the first phase of your punishment, Pet. Take it quietly, and I may be lenient tonight."

Then she struck him. Draco couldn't help it; he cried out. His pain tolerance was quite low. It was higher than it had been before he began actively following the Dark Lord, but it was still low. He heard Hermione say something about shame, and then she laid into him again. If he was being honest with himself, the pain really wasn't too terribly intense. Still, it hurt. She alternated between his ass, his upper thighs, and his back, never seeming to hit the same spot twice. After a few minutes she stopped and came up right behind him, pressing her breasts into his back while her hand snaked in between the cross and his body. She followed the line of his hip down to his stirring cock, where she wrapped her hand around him and began to slowly pump.

It was exquisite.

Shortly after he could get no harder, Hermione moved away from him again. He could hear her put down the flogger and pick up something else. As the leather struck him, he cried out again, not having expected more and certainly not expecting for it to hurt so much more than it had the first time.

"This is the second part of your punishment, love. And oh, but it gives your pale skin such a beautiful color. Do you recognize it? It's your favorite black and green suede flogger. I bet you've missed it."

More incoherent yelling came out of his mouth, mixing with moans as Hermione would strike him sharply once or twice and then pump his aching erection until he was no longer sure he really wanted her to stop beating him. When she changed floggers yet again and explained that this one was new and purchased just for this occasion, he was too far gone in lust to notice that it had the strongest bite yet. She brought him to the edge and kept him there with her whips and strokes until he was a rambling mess, not sure of what he was asking for or if he was actually managing to get words out.

Her pet had been punished enough, and he had done so very well. This had been his worst punishment to date, and she was so very proud of how far he had come and how little he had flinched from her touch. Knowing she would soothe him properly later, she simply ran both hands over his pinked flesh, using her cold hands to take some of the heat away. With a flick of her wand, Draco's body was turned around with his backside to the cool metal of the cross and his erection jutting out before him. It looked different to Hermione than normal, but seeing as he appeared to be both thicker and slightly longer, she decided to address it later. There were more important things to be done now.

"Now, Pet. I will use you. You will bring me pleasure, and you will not come until I allow you to do so." Another flick and Hermione had produced a metal cock ring around his balls and cock, holding them tightly and engorging him further. She then tilted the cross so that it was reclining at an angle. She began to strip her clothing off.

"Do you know what you have done to me? You have made me sweat. You have made me work for you, to correct you. And now Pet, now you will make me come."

With one last flick of her wand before setting it down on the table with the floggers, Hermione conjured lined manacles from the ceiling so that she would have something to hold onto. Then she climbed on top of him.

Draco was going to go mad. Hermione had climbed onto his lap and was rubbing her pussy lips up and down his shaft, lubricating him and teasing herself with his head on her clit. He could feel his belly tightly coiled already and wasn't sure how much more he could take. Then, she moved her hips at a different angle and he felt himself slide into tight, wet heat.

"_Ohhhhhhhh!_" Hermione moaned loudly, rocking her hips to allow him to go deeper until she finally sat herself down flush onto his hips. Draco lost sense of time after that. She swiveled her hips, she lifted, she slammed herself back down, she reached up for the manacles and held onto them while she bounced on his cock and used him utterly. He felt every pulse, every time her walls clenched around him as she got closer to orgasm, and he felt her tighten her muscles in waves. She looked down at him and spoke to him, called him the best Pet a Mistress could hope for, told him that next time she would conjure a mirror so that they could both watch as she slid him into her and out of her.

Her legs were clamped around him rigidly and he could feel her hips becoming erratic. He tried in vain to pump his own to meet her, to drive himself deeper into her as he felt her clench down on him with walls and hands and hips and legs. She shuddered, uttering a low cry and strangled _fuck_ at the same time that she released the cock ring from him. He lost it before he even had time to realize his restriction was gone, spurting stream after stream of his come into her body. She was rolling her hips on his, milking his cock until he was completely spent and his head fell back in the space between the "X" of the cross.

She spoke to him then, leaning over and whispering into his ear as his body shuddered with the aftershocks of his powerful orgasm.

"We have two weeks here to ourselves, Pet. Oh my Draco, you will believe in me the way I believe in you. We have fifteen more days to ourselves, and I can never be ignored."

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><p><strong>AN:** This was originally written for the DMHGficexchange on livejournal. The request:

**Would you prefer an art or fic gift?** Fic.**  
><strong>Preferred rating:<strong>** Hard R/NC-17**  
><strong>Describe what you'd like in as few wordskeywords as possible:**** Eighth year, Hermione becoming obsessed with Draco Malfoy and actively pursuing him, appearances by Lucius, Narcissa, and Pansy in a positive way, and also ignoring canon pairings as much as possible. :)**  
><strong>Optional:<strong>** Song, Poem, or Quote (title/original creator): #1 Crush by: Garbage**  
><strong>Dealbreakers (absolute no-no's):<strong>** A non-happy ending, slash, any major character deaths.


	2. Epilogue

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter or anything thus affiliated and am making no money from this work.

**A/N:** Much thanks to Sam for the beta work. I most definitely needed it.

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><p>Nearly all of the seventh-year students had departed from Platform 9 ¾ after returning to London on their final journey as students from Hogwarts. Many of them were unmet by family, further proof of the ravages of war on the families of those involved, whether by choice or unwittingly. One such student was hidden in the shadows of a pillar, having been looking for a white-blond head to appear in the thinning crowd. When she finally found it, she could not help the frown that marred her features at seeing a mass of frizzy dark hair just beneath it.<p>

Pansy Parkinson was a good friend to those who had ever bothered to make it past her exterior to find out, and she had been one to Draco since before she could really remember. She knew him like no other; she had been enamored of him as a budding teenager: coddling him when he was hurt by that beast Hagrid's malicious Hippogriff, excited beyond belief to be his date to the Yule Ball her fourth year, joining the Inquisitorial Squad with him her fifth, shocked and in awe of him her sixth for being worthy of a task set by the Dark Lord himself…her devotion to Draco Malfoy was steadfast. It was a result of having known him so well that she was the only one to notice the changes that took place in him over their last school year. No one else noticed his gravitation toward that awful Hermione Granger until it was too late. By the time it was obvious the two were together when everyone returned to Hogwarts from the winter break, they were inseparable.

People who were close to both of them tried to break them apart. It was almost sad, really, that the war had changed so little in most people's eyes as to still not allow the mixing of blood, but Pansy stayed out of it. She watched as that moron Longbottom tried to persuade Hermione that Draco was wrong for her; she said nothing when Gregory Goyle accused Draco of tarnishing Vincent Crabbe's memory by shagging the girl who cost him his life (and _that_ had been news to Pansy, but no one seemed to dispute the claim); she even got to witness the train wreck that was the two other parts of the "Golden Trio" coming to talk sense into the brains of their operation. The ensuing fight had been explosive, and it was really a good thing that it had taken place in Hogsmeade, where little had been damaged due to the fight moving toward the Shrieking Shack before hexes started flying. As far as she knew, the three were still estranged. Granger was waiting for an apology, apparently, and hadn't received one that was adequate yet.

Through all of the fighting, Pansy kept quiet because she wanted to keep Draco in any way she could. She had only been able to see him a handful of times after he and the Mudblood were official without seeing Granger practically attached to his hip. He was very protective of her, always with an arm around her middle or a hand placed at the base of her spine. It made it seem as though he was the one in charge of their relationship, but Pansy knew better. She watched them when no one else did and was the only person on well enough speaking terms with Draco to notice that he wore a kind of leather collar underneath his high-necked robes. Sometimes, she managed to catch a glimpse of a sort of ring on the back of it. Pansy did not want to think about what they used it for.

Neither Draco nor Hermione Granger were the same students they had been before the war really broke out. She had no way of knowing what happened to them and wasn't sure she would have tried to find out even if she could have. Before that cursed break over Yule and the new year, she had noticed Granger's odd behavior and had even tried to warn Draco to stay away from the unsettling girl. Granger would talk to herself and stare at Draco for hours. When Draco began to do the same some time in November, it had worried Pansy extremely. In the end, all her worrying and attempts to speak sense into her fellow Slytherin had made no difference. He was beyond her reach.

And so, Pansy kept her silent watch on an almost empty train platform in London, seeing Granger's hands thread into her best friend's hair and pull him down so she could speak into his ear. She saw something tug Draco's head back so that his neck was bared and Apparated away before she could see more than Granger licking it.

It was less than two months later that the engagement of "Draco Malfoy, Death Eater" and "Hermione Granger, War Heroine" was announced on the front page of the _Daily Prophet_. When Pansy received her invitation the next day, she promptly sent it back with an affirmative. If she couldn't do anything to get her friend out of the situation he was in, she would still be there for him, even if it meant watching him pledge his life to the twisted woman who had twisted him around herself.


End file.
